


Like a Bird Between Your Lungs

by lemonsharks



Series: The Thing With Feathers [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Courtship, Dragon Age Quest: The Ideal Romance, Epistolary, F/F, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Podfic Available, Slow Burn, Undefined Female Inquisitor (Dragon Age), pre-unexpected engagement, unspecified game choices, unspecified inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6901759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/pseuds/lemonsharks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The slow burn accidentally falling in love pentilyet romance dance remix, or: the one with the flowers and the poetry, or: In which Josephine completes Cassandra's romance quest.</p><p><a href="http://hornkerling.tumblr.com/post/144637099078/like-a-bird-between-your-lungs-lemonsharks">Podfic by hornkerling ♥</a> (22m)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Bird Between Your Lungs

They have Leliana between them: letters Josephine has sent inquiring of the (pretty) Seeker she’d met twice before returning from Orlais to Antiva. She buries the question between news of her family and entreaty to write more often, busy though Leliana is. 

_I miss you_ , she writes, and, _you are easily the dearest person to have come out of Orlais. And gone back, deliberately. Write soon. JCM._

They have Leliana between them, when the sky goes green and the Temple cracks and falls. Cassandra brings a surprisingly delicate hand to her mouth and touches fingers to her lips on an intake of breath. Josephine finds a wordless sound in her throat, a sound that draws Cassandra’s eye. 

In Haven, she has a thousand-thousand things to do. Letters, petitions, a smaller staff than she needs for this size of organization she must manage. She takes most meals in her office and sleeps less than half of each long night, listening to the swords on swords and shields and training dummies. Cassandra shares quarters with Cullen and half a dozen other Templar officers, and she comes to the Chantry to pray each morning before the dawn.

Her skin prickles with extra warmth on the days she wakes slumped over her desk with Cassandra’s quiet, muffled voice caressing the shell of her ear. 

_Fire shall be her water_.

Josephine coughs, and stands, and splashes icy water from the basin on her face. Her hair has turned from braids to tangles and her chain of office is askew. This early no one sees her slip across the hall; neither Leliana nor Madame Vivienne, with whom she shares cramped quarters, have arisen yet, though Leliana whispers into the dark. 

“You might try sleeping in a _bed_ , Josie.”

“Yes,” she whispers back, “I shall take that under advisement.”

Vivienne does not stir, but the barrier she casts around her bed each night flickers. It is not yet dawn, which is when she ordinarily wakes, but close enough to. They are quiet anyway. 

Josephine removes pins and ties from her hair and combs it straight, feels the bed shift when Leliana sits behind her and starts to weave the strands into place again. 

Vivienne yawns, and a rooster outside crows, and the sound of frenzy replaces that of early morning peace. The sound of Cassandra’s boots echoing their way back outside is lost among the early din, like an orchestra coming to an undirected start.

They have Cullen on one side of them and Leliana on the other. Cassandra favors the Templars and Josephine the mages, but each of them wants the Breach closed more than she cares just who does the closing. The Herald storms from the war room, coat swirling behind her and muttered curses under her breath. Leliana and Cullen do the same, and in the moment that follows Cassandra speaks. 

“I require a strong, hot drink,” she says, and, “You are welcome to come with me.”

Josephine thinks of unfinished correspondence with the Imperial Court of Orlais (she is fairly certain Celene herself has not laid eyes upon a single one of her letters) and with her mother. Imagines finishing every task before her this evening and waking with her conscience clear, but this is a dream of ambassadors across Thedas that has never once come to fruition. 

“I would love to join you,” she says, grinning, an expression Cassandra returns. Josephine’s heart does a twist in her chest and she precedes the Seeker from the room and toward the tavern. 

They run quickly out of complaints about their friends, their compatriots, the strays the Inquisitor keeps bringing home. There is a Tevinter mage from Redcliffe she finds fascinating, though Josephine warns her to be careful of him. It is true they cannot afford to turn _down_ alliances, but that does not excuse them from taking care with their newfound _allies_.

“Enough of this talk,” Cassandra says, then, and Josephine laughs. She has had two cups of hot mead with cinnamon and can feel her head beginning to spin--just a little. Cassandra trails off for a few moments before she continues, “I read the most delightful book while we were secreted away in a leaky cottage in the Fallow Mire….”

They speak of books, old friends that filled their quiet hours. Josephine recounts a handful of stories she remembers from Antiva and Cassandra listens to them well into the morning hours, rapt. Flissa finally tells them that she’s closing up shop and that they’ll have to be on their ways unless they plan to sleep beneath a table.

“Oh, I hadn’t realized--” Josephine never finishes her apology, because Cassandra rises, pushes in her chair, and releases the yawn she’s been stifling all night. 

“If you have any volumes with you,” Cassandra says, while they walk shoulder to shoulder toward the place their paths diverge. “I would love to read them, truly. My own collection is small, and--well. Most of it is still in Val Royeaux.” 

As it turns out, Cassandra understands a great deal of Antivan, reads rather less, and speaks little. 

She extends an invitation: _Come to my office in the evenings, and I shall read them to you_. 

It is a favor that makes Cassandra balk, at first, but then the Herald leaves with Varric, Iron Bull, and Solas, and _she_ is left with precious little to do besides her training and her worrying.

And so they come to spend long nights beside Josephine’s hearth, Cassandra rapt while Josephine reacquaints herself with a series of old friends, tales broken occasionally by laughter or comment, sometimes in rolling Antivan and other times in the clipped tongue of Thedosian trade. 

“I _am_ sorry,” Josephine tells her on one such night, “I had not realized this one was _quite_ so overwrought.”

Her throat scratches with want of water. She finds she does not care.

“I think it is wonderful,” Cassandra replies, then stands and stretches and touches Josephine lightly on the shoulder. “Thank you, my friend, but I believe it’s time we both turned in to bed.”

They have the spirit-child, Cole, between them, on the night that Haven falls. 

Josephine has been making merry with a small group of quite generous nobles while Cassandra goes to see if their lady Herald is well and their new allies settling in. She catches a glimpse of the Seeker’s tall form striding across the night, and smiles, before she tilts her head and laughs a terribly old joke from the Comte de Brevin. 

She hears the warning bells before she sees the marching army. They’ve no banner, and it is clear they do not come to offer friendship or supplication. Cassandra, for her part, has her sword in hand and her shield on her back, a crease between her eyes that Josephine longs to smooth. 

That of Haven which cannot stand to fight turns instead to run. Josephine abandons her small personal library, tucking only a single volume beneath her arm alongside her writing board. It is a slim codex, two thirds finished and left out on her desk from the night before. Not even her favorite among the books she has brought with her from Antiva, rather, the one they simply happened to be reading _now_. 

She follows behind Chancellor Roderick and remembers with each step another thing, another _person_ , she cannot go back for. 

It is a miracle that the Herald--that Cassandra--that _any_ of them live. 

They have a small legion of the faithful and a set of stairs between them when the Herald becomes their Inquisitor, the first time they’ve shared a glance since they had all been shouting at one another in their flight. 

Josephine had stuck close to Leliana, needing every scrap of information the spymaster can give her, yes, but also wanting very much for the company of a dear friend. An old friend. 

No time remains for evening tete-a-tetes with the shouts of masons and chanters filling the Great Hall, the Inquisitor’s voice reverberating from her throne in judgment. She prefers taking agents to prisoners, a tendency that nets Josephine a handful of new staff to be put through their paces. 

And if Cassandra thinks her absence in the War Room has not been noticed, well. She would be incorrect on that account. 

She leaves with the Inquisitor when the first of the renovations of Skyhold are complete--determined to go a-heroing, to show all Orlais that they will not want for a champion in the woman they all follow. She is gone for three months. 

Strange, that she measures by Cassandra’s absence for her personal bearing, the Inquisitor’s for Inquisition business only.

Josephine reads reports of their exploits in Crestwood and the Exhalted Plains, rifts sealed and abominations put to rest, wyverns slain and roads made safe again. A Dalish lad arrives at Skyhold, escorted by an elder cousin who wishes him well in a scolding tone and departs. 

She licks her lips when she breaks the seal on Celene’s letter, personally inviting them to the Winter Palace at Halamshiral. Breath comes and goes from her lungs with ease for the first time since Haven. She writes a missive recalling the Inquisitor to Skyhold immediately. _This_ letter takes a triplicate seal--hers, Cullen’s, Leliana’s--the only thing that will bring the Inquisitor home with the required haste. 

Preparations loom. Josephine sets herself to them. 

They have Yvette between them at the Winter Palace, after. Josephine leaves Cassandra with her sister (a suitable punishment, for her silence and scarceness all through the ball) and goes to look after the Inquisitor herself. Make certain she is well enough in the wake of all that’s passed. 

She _is_ well, if a little tired, and in need of a few hours alone. Josephine promises that she will make the necessary excuses to the correct set of people and bids the Inquisitor goodnight, though she does not make an immediate return to the ballroom herself.

The chill night air brushes pleasantly against her skin in a light breeze, the whispers and laughter carried to her ears all a-twitter as Celene and Briala dance with none but each other for the rest of the night. Favor shown to for services rendered unto the Seat of the Empire, though Josephine guesses there’s more to it than simply that. All Orlais will be talking about this night in the morning, and this is but one very small piece. 

It is Cassandra who finds her at the first bell of morning, with her hair sticking up in the back and her epaulettes askew, the formal garb put back on quickly after a harrowing fight. 

“Your sister is quite--” she begins, then shakes her head. “I introduced her to Commander Cullen.”

“I doubt he will thank you for that.”

“It will save him from the rest of the Court for half an hour. I know what I am doing.”

“You have the played Game, then?”

“I have never relished it, but yes.” She sighs. “It is a necessary evil in Orlais.” 

Cassandra crosses her arms over her chest, shifts once from foot to foot. She settles her eyes on the spot just beyond Josephine’s left shoulder.

Before she can begin, Josephine speaks. “Would you care for a dance, Cassandra? It is one of the few places here we might speak without prying ears, though I will ask that you lead.” She laughs. “I am almost always the shorter partner.”

The Seeker nods once, and takes Josephine’s hands in hers. Older steps, and classically Nevarran. She knows them as well as Josephine does not--though she’s unpracticed at the start. 

Cassandra hums a bar out of tune with the music floating from the ballroom, moves Josephine through a spin and settles her left hand at her hip. “We never finished our last story. Did you save the book, by any chance?”

“It was the only one I saved.”

“I am sorry for that, I--this is ridiculous. I must speak plainly, with you of all people.”

A dip this time, and the dance ends. Then Cassandra leads her into the steps of the next dance--or rather, the same dance again, a little slower, and she wonders whether she only knows the one.

“I am listening,” Josephine says. 

“I did not have the chance to speak with you after Hawke joined us. We last parted on--poor terms.”

Josephine laughs, just a little, and Cassandra scowls. “We did, though the journey from Haven was difficult for everyone.”

“Nonetheless, I should not have left so quickly without making amends. And--I would like, very much, to resume our evenings together. If you would. I would also understand if--”

“I would like to resume them as well,” she says. “Though soon we will need a new book.”

Color rises in Cassandra’s cheeks. “I have one of Varric’s that I believe you might enjoy.”

 _Varric’s? I had thought she disliked him._ Josephine laughs again, giddy with proximity. 

They leave the Winter Palace, and again Cassandra departs with the Inquisitor, this time to the Western Approach. 

Josephine organizes bridges and varghast hunting parties, the digging of new wells and a library for Griffon Wing Keep, all by letter. She also reads to the end of the tale she and Cassandra left unfinished, and has a bouquet of calla lilies sent to Cassandra’s room when she learns the party will return within the day. She ties a short note to the stems: 

_Join me for cocoa and a story tonight. JCM._

It is as if they had never quarreled, never allowed the quarrel to molder. They last a chapter into the book, and then slip into conversation about their cohort. 

Josephine holds her fingers between the pages to keep her place, and for another hour they talk of the small, strange family the Inquisition is becoming. Cassandra is laughing by the end of it, and Josephine is sure she’s never heard a lovelier sound. 

They stand when their laughter turns to yawning, and she follows the Seeker on their way to bed. Josephine takes the stairs to her room above the garden, and waves her goodbye as Cassandra makes her way to the forge. _Today_ , she decides, _has been the best sort of day_. She will hold it close for times when she has less joy, less surety that the world will come to rights, and when she crawls into her bed she does not even mind the cold. 

After months of carrying the reading herself, Josephine makes a determination. They’ve finished her final Antivan novel, and she sits back with the book in her lap and her hands cradled around the cover.

“ _You_ should read _Swords and Shields_ ,” she says, and holds up a hand when Cassandra begins to protest. “ _Dramatically_.”

She makes a sound high in her throat, but assents not long after, and takes the loaned book from its place on Josephine’s shelf. Its thin cover is care-worn, and Cassandra’s voice at first rusty with this sort of disuse, but it becomes clear very soon that she has read this story several times and cares for it a great deal. 

Josephine sinks back into her chair and enjoys the sound of Cassandra’s voice, the rich lilt of her accent, no trilled purrs around the rhotic consonants like she sometimes hears at home but--a cousin to them. She has a soothing voice, when she isn’t shouting orders at their recruits or sparring with Cullen, Iron Bull, or Blackwall.

 _I could fall asleep to that voice_ , she thinks, and knows it is a dangerous thought. Still. She holds it close and listens with half-lidded eyes while Cassandra reads.

They have Leliana between them, the night before the Inquisition is to leave for Adamant Fortress. 

Josephine has come to speak with Dorian, on the matter of Corypheus’ true name, and she hears quiet words among the caws drifting down from the raven rookery. 

“She is an innocent in love, Cassandra,” Leliana says. “It is hardly fair to lead her on when you’ve no intention--”

“I have no idea what intention you are speaking of. Josephine is my _friend_ \--”

Leliana laughs. Not warm and full as Josephine remembers from kinder days, but sharp and crisp as new ice on a lake, too thin to support a person’s weight. 

“I have no _intention_ toward her past _friendship_ , Leliana--”

“Then you had best tell her that, before you break her heart.”

 _An innocent in love, indeed_ , she thinks, seething. Josephine curls her hands into fists and excuses herself from the rotunda, stalks back to her office and dashes off a series of letters in a hand that barely shakes. There are no tear stains on her missives, but it is a near thing, and she finds herself dabbing her eyes dry upon her sleeve between each page.

She will not stay behind from the journey to Adamant, but she will not be part of the vanguard. When she does not see Cassandra _or_ Leliana the following day, she decides this is for the best. She also says a quick prayer to the Maker to keep them both safe, despite the odds they face. 

Josephine stays at the rear of the onslaught, playing hostess to their allies. Bright masks twinkle in the light of one full moon as columns of flame and sparks of magic and alchemy ascend over the walls of Adamant Fortress. Good men and women are dying for their cause. For their enemy’s cause. 

The nobles shriek when Corypheus’ archdemon appears. A chill ascends her spine, and she follows the creature with her eyes as it flames the side of the fortress, human screams lost to wind and distance. A portion of the wall cracks and collapses, and Josephine is unafraid. 

She does not know that the Inquisitor and her companions have fallen bodily into the fade, nor who shall fail in their return from it. 

For now, she eases the startled, twittering and sometime-shrieking nobles with kind words, and the assurance that all is well in hand.

“How can you know that?” one man asks, his voice thick with the cadence of Montsimmard. 

“I do not entirely, my lord,” Josephine replies candidly, “But I have every confidence in the in our forces, and in our leadership. They are good people, following good people.”

He slips away, scowling but calmer, after that. An elven runner from the front has been waiting for them to finish. 

“My lady ambassador,” she says, “I’ve dreadful news from Commander Cullen.”

They have the Inquisitor between them, on the trip back. 

She gives her report in a rush while the scribe with the steadiest hands take her dictation from his seat in the wagon. Josephine rides an Anderfel Courser, asking pointed questions and never letting her eyes stray far from Cassandra, who scowls the whole way back. 

They have lost good people, a good person; they have lost and gained support they need desperately in one swiftly made decision about the Wardens’ fate. 

The party breaks in Val Royeaux--a small support staff with Inquisitor, Cassandra, Sera, and Cole to the Emprise, and the rest of them to Skyhold. Josephine stops to buy a book--the volume full of romantic and heroic Antivan tales, in translation. She copies a poem written in honor of the Antivan hero Araya, said to have tamed dragons and turned evil men back to the Maker’s light with a handful of words, onto the back of the frontispiece. 

Supposedly it helped him arise from his darkest hour, and she thinks it could do her friend no harm.

_My favorite. It makes me think of you, now. JCM._

_You shall breathe again though you’ve grown cold. I_  
_Have stared into the darkness and I know_  
_The stronger stuff you’re made of, aurum-bright_  
_Shall bring you to the sky on wings of crows_

 _I know you’ll rise again though you’ve grown still_  
_Long nights and thankless days wear like the sea_  
_My love, I’ve seen your incandescent days_  
_You’ll rest upon the night you cease to breathe_

 _Wicked men all cower when you pass, and_  
_They shall have no rest with you abroad. None_  
_Shall know a quiet night beneath your hand_  
_Your sword shall pierce their breast and they’ll be done._

 _And I shall wait for you beside the hearth_  
_And I shall write the ballads of your worth._

She wraps the book with a single green ribbon and leaves it upon Cassandra’s pillow for her to find when she returns. 

They have moonflowers between them in the Skyhold Chantry garden. Cassandra catches her eye from the ground and waves that she join her; Josephine comes, with the feeling of her heart in her throat or a bird between her lungs, or both. 

Cassandra has the book in her hands. 

The night is scented with flowers, heavy, heady. 

“Josephine,” Cassandra begins, and the rest of her words fall out in a rush. “What do you mean by--I must know by--by all of this. The reading together, I thought: _friends do this on occasion_ , the flowers, _she sends flowers as a kindness_ , and--I do not know anything anymore, Josephine. But this--”

She clutches the book between her hands, now, nails leaving crescents in the soft leather cover. 

Josephine breathes. Steady. Silently as she had in her time as a bard. Cassandra is her friend, yes, but she would be remiss if she denied the flutter she brings on simply by existing in Josephine’s vicinity. 

She would be remiss to say she had not hoped, on colder nights, that Cassandra might take her hand and press her fingers to her cheek, or warm them with her breath. That she had not dreamed the taste of Cassandra’s mouth, the feel of her lips, of being full up with her breath. 

She says, “I can stop, if you like.”

Josephine looks at her feet. No words have ever hurt her more. 

Cassandra breathes, a steadying breath, the kind she takes before a charge upon the practice court. 

“You have given me the romance that I’ve dreamed of for many years, and I cannot--. You’re a _woman_.”

“Is that a problem for you?”

“Yes, I--I do not know any longer, you--you make everything...confusing. Perhaps, but. Perhaps not.”

Josephine smiles, and the bird within her alights.

“Seeker,” she says, “I would very much like to kiss you now.”


End file.
